Field of the Invention
A reversible baseball or other glove useable by both right-handed and left-handed players includes a juxtaposed front and rear piece of flexible sheet material, as described in the Disclosure Document Program, 095823 filed on Nov. 25, 1980, each said piece provided with the conventional stalls of a fielder's glove or mitten shaped glove, a palm portion, and a heel portion, said front piece having a first cutout therein, said first cutout extending upwardly in a curved or trapezoidal configuration into and across said palm portion of said front piece from said heel portion of said front piece, said rear piece having a second cutout therein, said second cutout extending upwardly in a curved or trapezoidal configuration into and across said palm portion of said rear piece from said heel portion of said rear piece; a web disposed between one of said outer finger stalls and the adjoining finger stall; lacing means for peripherally interconnecting said front piece and said rear piece, wherein said lacing means joins said web to said front piece and said rear piece; a first geometrically shaped planar member of substantially identical shape to the shape of said first cutout of said front piece, said first geometrically shaped planar member being disposed within said first cutout of said front piece; a first means for movably interconnecting said first geometrically shaped member to said front piece; a second geometrically shaped planar member of substantially identical shape to the shape of said second cutout of said rear piece, said second geometrically shaped planar member being disposed within said second cutout of said rear piece; and second means for movably interconnecting said second geometrically shaped member to said rear piece.
Baseball gloves or mitts are known, e.g. from U.S. Pat. No. 2,521,488 which can be used with either the left or the right hand by having a compartment formed between a removable padding and one of two sheets, the padding coming to lie against the palm of the inserted hand. According to the disclosing of that patent, the stalls for the index and middle fingers are separated from the thumb stall by a relatively wide web of generally triangular shape and from the two remaining stalls, also joined together, by a similar but narrower web. It is also known to interconnect the front and rear sheets of a baseball glove by lacing which extends along the lateral sheet edges as well as along the peripheries of their extensions defining the finger stalls; see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,324,219; 2,699,551; 2,281,315, 3,042,929; 3,098,234; 3,300,787 and 3,528,107. Some of these prior patents also show a web secured by the lacing to adjoining finger stalls.
A reversible baseball glove of the conventional type has the disadvantage that the front face of the glove, formed by either of the two peripherally interconnected sheets depending on which hand is being used, does not readily assume the proper concave shape required for the catching of an oncoming ball. Thus, if the two sheets are mutually coextensive when flat, the sheet coming to lie on the convex rear surface would have to be excessively stretched when the glove is curved forward by the player's fingers reaching for a ball.